June 1, 2005
Dispatch #84
We hereby commence the inclusion of our weekly newsletter, "The Dispatch," right here on this blog, archived for your reading pleasure. The Dispatch monthly archives will be the place to go in case you missed any of our weekly recaps of all the new VOD and DVD releases, tips on the latest articles, staff picks, service highlights and more. So without further ado...#84 | June 1, 2005:
"I'd like to have your advice on how to live comfortably without working hard."
-- Rebecca. "Yeah, that'll happen."
-- Ghost World.
We held onto this issue of the GreenCine Dispatch a bit longer so you could be the first to hear: We proudly announce the finalists in the DivX Presents the GreenCine Online Film Festival! The finalists in the Narrative Competition are:
IPO (2004); Peep Show (2004);
Red Cockroaches (2004); Security (2005) (World Premiere); and White Knuckles (2004). Finalists in the Documentary Competition are: About Baghdad (2004); Empire of Juramidam (2004);
The End of Suburbia (2004); Piece by Piece (2004); and Visiting Shane (2005) (World Premiere). Go to each film's individual page for more detailed information and to download them in the secure DivX format to watch in the comfort of your own home. We extend hearty congratulations to each of the finalists, as fine a crop of films as we could have hoped for. The Festival runs through June 26.
The work of Adam Curtis - specifically, two episodes of his Pandora's Box, Goodbye Mrs. Ant and The Brink of Eternity - will be screened this week at the Green Screen Film Festival in San Francisco. As a follow-up to David D'Arcy's interview, focusing on The Power of Nightmares, Hannah Eaves, Jonathan Marlow and Tom Luddy talk to Curtis about his unique approach to storytelling.
Here's a little-known fact: Rob Nilsson (pictured at left) is the first American director to win both the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. On the occasion of the world premiere of his newest film, Security, in the GreenCine Online Film Festival, Nilsson spoke to us about his fiercely independent career, spanning nearly thirty years.
At the GreenCine Daily, our award-winning film blog: Serious linkage to film reviews, film commentary, features, festivals, and Fassbinder.
Video-on-Demand: Picture This (1992).
GreenCine's got a VOD and DVD double-feature idea for you: Watch the documentary Picture This, which peeks back at Peter Bogdanovich's classic The Last Picture Show and pair that with a viewing of the original film. Picture This, thoughtfully directed by veteran documentary filmmaker George Hickenlooper, makes for a fine companion piece, and gives fans of the original more of a sense of closure than found in the sequel Texasville. The original film still stands up as one of the finest dramas from the 1970s; bolstered by a terrific cast and beautiful black and white cinematography by Robert Surtees, the film deftly balances pathos and comedy so skillfully you'll understand why it single-handedly built up Bogdonavich's reputation so high he was never really able to match it. Viewing the documentary, appropriately subtitled "The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas," one gets the sense of how the film almost caused the director to have a nervous breakdown - in addition to myriad personal crises the director and the book's author Larry MacMurtry had to manage with locals feeling a little dubious the film would show them in anything but a stereotypical light. Hickenlooper includes interviews with a good portion of the principals involved both in front of and behind the cameras, and "delivers a solid hour-long documentary, and one that offers a few surprises between the fascinating conversations." (Apollo Film Guide) Add The Last Picture Show to your queue, and watch Picture This anytime you want via GreenCine's Video-on-Demand service.
GreenCine Staff Pick of the Week: Youth of the Beast (1963).
Straight outta Tokyo, this movie kicks some serious a** - Youth of the Beast (Yaju no seishun) is hard-boiled "pulp fiction" Japanese style. And yet even with a crisp Criterion Edition disc, Seijun Suzuki's essential, and absolutely over the top, film remains relatively obscure. Youth of the Beast is not quite the Yakuza masterpiece that Suzuki's Branded to Kill is (mostly due to a weaker storyline), but it's so highly stylized you may hardly care: Colorful and flashy as all get out, dynamically edited, and with a jazzy score, the film was pretty extraordinary for its time, practically avant garde, even. Has film noir ever looked so bright? The disc's extras are few, though an illuminating interview with the director is worthy, but most importantly, it looks and sounds as sharp as one could hope. -- Craig
Phillips
A small but terrific bunch of films highlight this week's new DVD
releases:
Jules et Jim (1962). More than the quintessential ménage à trois, more even than François Truffaut's best film, as many would argue, Jules et Jim is also quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. Its influence so immeasurable, in fact, that people watching it now forget that many of Truffaut's vivacious techniques that seem so familiar appeared here for the first time. Criterion releases an extras-packed double-disc edition, but the highlight is surely the new hi-def digital transfer supervised by DP Raoul Coutard.
Mandabi (1968). The first of two releases this week from Sengalese director Ousmane Sembene, most recently celebrated for his Moolaadé, Mandabi was the first he shot in the Wolof language, a gesture which, as Sam Adams notes in the Philadelphia City Paper, is "itself a powerful declaration of postcolonial independence." Though the film "positively explodes with color" and "shifts from stark melodrama to mordant comedy," Adams nonetheless notes that all these years on, the film still "has a sad timelessness, especially given the international focus on financial aid as the solution to all Africa's ills. 'As for the country, we'll change it,' one man declares, a promise as heady as it is daunting."
Then there's Xala (1975). "Widely regarded as Sembene's finest achievement, Xala is a cutting morality tale that equally blames the corruption of Senegal's sociopolitical environment on Euro-centricity and African auto-destruction," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "You'd be hard pressed to find a filmmaker this critical of the political powers-that-be that threaten their fellow people's livelihoods."
East of Eden (1962). "At the time of [James] Dean's death, exactly one of the three movies he had starred in had been released," wrote Terrence Rafferty recently in the New York Times, "and in that film, Elia Kazan's East of Eden, "he had, for many viewers, incarnated the very essence of youth, its torments and confusions." And why, for Film Threat's Brad Laidman is it "his best film and most electric performance"? "It helps that he acts his ass off here, but the fact that he is achingly beautiful doesn't hurt either." Bonus disc.
Zero Patience (2003). "If silence equals death, Zero Patience is not about to succumb anytime soon," wrote Rita Kempley in the Washington Post way back in 1994. "A screamer of an AIDS musical from writer-director John Greyson, the film sets out to debunk scientific theories on the origin of the disease."
Vibrations / Fluctuations / Submission (1967-1970). A sexploitation triple bill beginning with Vibrations (1967), of which IMDb user "goblinhairedguy" writes, "This middle-period [Joseph] Sarno opus concentrates more than usual on the erotic scenes and heaving breasts, and for once probably satisfied the raincoat crowd as much as puzzling them. For fans of the auteur, there's plenty of psychological intensity and moral irony, as well as a neat jazzy organ score - like Fassbinder, Sarno was continually recombining his major themes and stylistic tropes in clever new variations." Fluctuations was directed in 1970 by one Joel Landwehr, Submission in 1969 by Allen Savage. Evidently.
Samurai Champloo. Volume 3. (2004): "This is from Shinichiro Watanabe, also responsible for the wildly popular Cowboy Bebop," notes ahogue. "Far as I can tell you won't go wrong watching something with his name on it. It's just good fun, really."
If you're thinking about downloading the aforementioned finalists in the GreenCine Online Film Festival, and we hope you are, we recommend reading our DivX FAQ first. While our panel of judges work towards the selection of the two Grand Prize winners, you can participate in the voting for the Audience Award, through June 26. We thank you, and the filmmakers thank you, too.
Congratulations to the winners of several recent GreenCine Trivia Contests: winners of the Amityville Collection contest were castar, kolohe61 and MDinkins (the answer was Lalo Schifrin); winners of the Kinsey contest were SGraves and reiermann (the answer was John Lithgow). Meanwhile, our next trivia contest giveaway will be up on the GreenCine home page this Friday; check it out for your chance to win a copy of the classic British sci-fi series The Tomorrow People on DVD.
Tonight! GreenCine presents Animated Exposure, introduced by Microcinema International curator/founder Joel S. Bachar. Microcinema International began its ongoing short film and video series, Independent
Exposure, in 1996. Since then, it has presented over 1,300 shorts by filmmakers from around the world and has screened work to audiences in forty-three countries. This program will be a special animated anniversary tour through ten years of Independent Exposure, a retrospective featuring a diverse collection of films utilizing a variety of animation styles. Tonight, Wednesday, June 1, 7:30pm at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. $8/$5 GreenCine and YBCA Members, Students, Seniors.
The Filmmaker Program: Do you have a candy gut from craft services? Are your eyes glazed over from editing on an Avid? Did your significant other threaten you to finish your movie or else? Yes, you're an independent filmmaker. Well, what now? How about coming to the Filmmaker Program in Las Vegas, where one out of three films attending have found distribution. It can happen for you, too. The Marketplace Table is a way for you to show your product and interact directly with video retailers, acquisitions and studio executives, while the Showcase Catalog gets your film in the hands of those retailers and executives. The program is $95.00 and runs July 26-28; registration deadline is June 30th. We recommend viewing this newsletter in all of its HTML glory; check your e-mail program's settings to view HTML. This newsletter is sent to GreenCine members only. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter in the future, log in to the GreenCine site, click "View Your Profile" then click Edit Profile. Choose "no" on the "Subscribe to the GreenCine newsletter" option and click "Update Profile." Posted by cphillips at June 1, 2005 11:27 PM
